Aleksei Liptser: The Prisoner of Abakan<\/h1><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/humanrights-online.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Header-Putin-3-1024x245.jpg\")
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Caption<\/strong>: Aleksei Liptser was transferred to a penal colony in Abakan, more than 4,300 kilometres from Moscow, a name that inevitably recalls \u201cAzkaban,\u201d the dark prison from the Harry Potter series. The wordplay is intentional: in fiction, Azkaban symbolizes isolation, fear and systematic psychological destruction. The visual reference highlights the monstrosity of a political system that criminalizes defence lawyers and deliberately dismantles the last safeguards of the rule of law. (The illustration was created with the help of AI.)<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>ISHR: No Carnival Joke \u2013 Putin\u2019s \u201cDementors\u201d Have Just Taken Navalny\u2019s Youngest Lawyer to \u201cAzkaban\u201d<\/h2>\nTwo Years After Navalny\u2019s Death: ISHR Calls for the Release of His Lawyers and Access to Independent Medical Care<\/h3>\n<\/div>![\"Aleksei](\"https:\/\/humanrights-online.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Aleksei-Lipzer-400x400-1.jpg\" "\\"Aleksei-Lipzer-400×400\\"")
<\/span><\/div>Aleksei Liptser behind bars during a court hearing. Photo: Alexandra Astakhova \/ Mediazona<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>Frankfurt am Main, 12 February 2026<\/strong> \u2013 Two years after the agonizing death of Russia\u2019s most prominent opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR\/IGFM) warns of intensified repression against his former lawyers. Over the past two months, the youngest among them, Aleksei Liptser, has been transported across Siberia while seriously ill. Just in time for the second anniversary of Navalny\u2019s death, he has now been transferred to a penal colony in Abakan, more than 4,300 kilometres east of Moscow. His family is appealing for mercy.<\/p>\nNow 39 years old, Aleksei Liptser comes from a renowned Moscow family of human rights defenders. He was arrested in October 2023, his bank accounts were frozen, and his young family was left without financial means. In January 2025, he was sentenced to five years in prison. Previously in good health, Liptser developed life-threatening hypertension while held in Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 1 in Vladimir, near Moscow. He has been denied access to an independent medical examination. The ISHR\/IGFM supports the recent public appeal published by his wife, Lyudmila Liptser, in Novaya Gazeta<\/em>, in which she asks the authorities to show mercy and transfer her husband, in accordance with existing legal provisions, to a facility closer to her place of residence in Samara.<\/p>\n\n\u201cIt is the lowest form of contempt for human dignity when defence lawyers of political prisoners become political victims themselves. Prosecuting lawyers for doing their job is the most insidious way to destroy the rule of law, because it not only breaks individuals but deliberately dismantles the last safeguards against arbitrariness. Whoever criminalizes lawyers seeks to make justice impossible. Aleksei Liptser is not in prison because he committed a crime, but because he did his job \u2013 his immediate release is long overdue,\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nsaid Dr. Sergey Lagodinsky, German Member of the European Parliament of Russian origin, who has assumed political patronage for Aleksei Liptser.<\/p>\n
Blanket Powers Through Anti-Terror Legislation<\/strong><\/h3>\nThrough sweeping anti-terror legislation and the classification of Navalny\u2019s Anti-Corruption Foundation as a \u201cterrorist\u201d organization at the end of 2024, President Putin has effectively granted himself blanket authority. In today\u2019s Russia, anyone aged 14 and above who is even remotely suspected of supporting a \u201cterrorist\u201d organization can face expropriation, imprisonment, and ill-treatment. Even laying flowers in memory of Navalny on the anniversary of his death may be prosecuted as a \u201cterrorist\u201d offence, according to ISHR\/IGFM.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Caption<\/strong>: Aleksei Liptser was transferred to a penal colony in Abakan, more than 4,300 kilometres from Moscow, a name that inevitably recalls \u201cAzkaban,\u201d the dark prison from the Harry Potter series. The wordplay is intentional: in fiction, Azkaban symbolizes isolation, fear and systematic psychological destruction. The visual reference highlights the monstrosity of a political system that criminalizes defence lawyers and deliberately dismantles the last safeguards of the rule of law. (The illustration was created with the help of AI.)<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div> Aleksei Liptser behind bars during a court hearing. Photo: Alexandra Astakhova \/ Mediazona<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div> Frankfurt am Main, 12 February 2026<\/strong> \u2013 Two years after the agonizing death of Russia\u2019s most prominent opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR\/IGFM) warns of intensified repression against his former lawyers. Over the past two months, the youngest among them, Aleksei Liptser, has been transported across Siberia while seriously ill. Just in time for the second anniversary of Navalny\u2019s death, he has now been transferred to a penal colony in Abakan, more than 4,300 kilometres east of Moscow. His family is appealing for mercy.<\/p>\n Now 39 years old, Aleksei Liptser comes from a renowned Moscow family of human rights defenders. He was arrested in October 2023, his bank accounts were frozen, and his young family was left without financial means. In January 2025, he was sentenced to five years in prison. Previously in good health, Liptser developed life-threatening hypertension while held in Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 1 in Vladimir, near Moscow. He has been denied access to an independent medical examination. The ISHR\/IGFM supports the recent public appeal published by his wife, Lyudmila Liptser, in Novaya Gazeta<\/em>, in which she asks the authorities to show mercy and transfer her husband, in accordance with existing legal provisions, to a facility closer to her place of residence in Samara.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is the lowest form of contempt for human dignity when defence lawyers of political prisoners become political victims themselves. Prosecuting lawyers for doing their job is the most insidious way to destroy the rule of law, because it not only breaks individuals but deliberately dismantles the last safeguards against arbitrariness. Whoever criminalizes lawyers seeks to make justice impossible. Aleksei Liptser is not in prison because he committed a crime, but because he did his job \u2013 his immediate release is long overdue,\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n said Dr. Sergey Lagodinsky, German Member of the European Parliament of Russian origin, who has assumed political patronage for Aleksei Liptser.<\/p>\n Through sweeping anti-terror legislation and the classification of Navalny\u2019s Anti-Corruption Foundation as a \u201cterrorist\u201d organization at the end of 2024, President Putin has effectively granted himself blanket authority. In today\u2019s Russia, anyone aged 14 and above who is even remotely suspected of supporting a \u201cterrorist\u201d organization can face expropriation, imprisonment, and ill-treatment. Even laying flowers in memory of Navalny on the anniversary of his death may be prosecuted as a \u201cterrorist\u201d offence, according to ISHR\/IGFM.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>ISHR: No Carnival Joke \u2013 Putin\u2019s \u201cDementors\u201d Have Just Taken Navalny\u2019s Youngest Lawyer to \u201cAzkaban\u201d<\/h2>\n
Two Years After Navalny\u2019s Death: ISHR Calls for the Release of His Lawyers and Access to Independent Medical Care<\/h3>\n<\/div>
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Blanket Powers Through Anti-Terror Legislation<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/humanrights-online.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Moscow-Abakan-1024x385.png\" "\\"Moscow")
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